Tag: a failure of civility

Civil Defense Manual by Jack Lawson on Sale Now

Jack Lawson is one of the co-authors of the now out-of-print but still much sought after book A Failure of Civility. He has now published Civil Defense Manual, Vol. I & II: How to Prepare and Protect Your Neighborhood from Disaster, Riot and Civil Unrest.

What’s in the Civil Defense Manual?

An overview of some subjects…

  • How to protect and secure your neighborhood against riot, civil unrest and fire using the CDM Neighborhood Protection PlanTM concept.
  • How to determine the level of danger from mobs where you live with this simple calculator
  • Checklists of items you must immediately purchase when Extraordinary Catastrophic Events strike in practical check box checklist forms
  • Tips on how to survive a gun battle
  • How to get gas station fuel from underground tanks in a total Grid Down situation
  • How neighbors can make their area a secure fortress by using simple military tactics
  • Night fighting without night vision equipment-written by a Navy SEAL Officer
  • Water sources, where are they and how to make water drinkable
  • Emergency lighting on and off the grid, how to make a torch and lamp, how to make lamp oil from trees, how to make candles and wicks
  • A simple way to store chicken eggs without refrigeration for up to two years
  • What you need for individual/cooperative tools, supplies, equipment needed for survival
  • Improvised security devices, improvised weapons and improvised attack vehicles
  • How to make your own N95 equivalent reusable face mask
  • The most probable catastrophes that are looming and what their characteristics will be
  • How to make a bullet cause a shotgun effect by using the ‘skipping rounds’ technique
  • Where and how to get salt from Mother Nature virtually anywhere
  • The step by step procedure of organizing your neighborhood and how to put it in action
  • What to buy in emergency foods and proper storage
  • Cold weather refuge from freezing without burning fuel
  • How to make Pemmican-the long-term storage food staple that provides everything you need in one food source
  • Marksmanship fundamentals… how to logically and properly choose your firearm
  • Medical information and resources and alternative pain control methods
  • How to make your own hand sanitizer
  • All about short and long-range radio communications
  • Dental care, how to protect your teeth without a dentist and pain control methods
  • How to make your own toothbrush and toothpaste
  • What fuel to store and how to store it.
  • The ABCs of alternative power sources
  • How to survive hypothermia and cold weather when others die
  • How to aggressively defend your neighborhood using strategies and simple military tactics that will defeat far superior forces
  • How to survive biological infectious disease and protective equipment needed
  • Principles of an Area Tactical Proactive Defense, patrolling and house clearing
  • Strategic and tactical principles of thought
  • Tactics… Plain language explanations, that even with no military or Law Enforcement background, you can understand. Tactical and strategic principles, effects and movement:
    • All Around Defense
    • Fields of Fire
    • Interlocking Fields of Fire
    • Supporting Fields of Fire
    • Element of Surprise
    • Force Multiplier Effect
    • Violence of Action
    • Economy of Force
    • Kill Zone maze
    • Defense In Depth
    • Flanking Attack principles
    • L Shaped Ambush
    • Cover and Fire Movement
    • Fall Back Fighting Positions
    • Area Tactical Proactive Defense (aggressive defense employing offensive maneuvers)
    • Serpentine Entry Control
    • Perimeter Defense and the Vauban Star Perimeter Defense principle
    • Indirect Approach Strategy
    • Employment and coordination of Inside Marksmen and OutFlanker Marksmen
    • The Rapid Response Force
    • The third Dimension of the Defensive Perimeter
    • The Castle Concept
  • Setting up long-range marksmen and observation posts
  • How to fortify and defend a suburban neighborhood, high-rise building, ranch, farm or houseboat on a lake or river
  • Where to hunker down in the city
  • How to survive hurricane, earthquake, tornados, electrical power outages
  • Why government can’t assist and why you and your neighbors are on your own.
  • Why natural gas flow will stop with most severe disasters-contrary to popular thought
  • The organizational structure needed for a CDM Neighborhood Protection PlanTM
  • Defense Perimeter principles and how to build fortifications
  • Surviving Nuclear Warfare where you are with what you have
  • The effect of an Electro Magnetic Pulse event (EMP) on you and what it will damage
  • How to build an inexpensive Faraday Cage
  • Sanitation and care for the dead made simple
  • Fire protection procedures
  • What a disaster will really be like and how to mentally prepare yourself for disaster
  • How to create an essential Intelligence Section to know what is happening in your area
  • The A to Z of underground shelters and everything you could possibly want to know
  • Security in Motion, Survival-Escape-Resistance-Evasion (SERE)
  • How to deal with family, friends and those who don’t prepare
  • Bullet proof vest protection level chart and penetration chart of common materials
  • Morse Code chart
  • Emergency Radio Frequency list
  • The Military Phonetic Alphabet
  • Calculation form for food, how many people it will feed and for how long
  • Blood transfusion compatibility chart
  • Chart of Catastrophic Events and Characteristics
  • Numerous engaging and illustrative stories to heighten the learning experience
  • Book features: Large font, written in Layman terms, practical check box checklists and forms, definitions, diagrams, depictions, charts, photographs and stories

Update: Having received a copy of Civil Defense Manual, I can now see that contributing authors include Sam Culper of Forward Observer, NC Scout from Brushbeater blog, former Navy SEAL Matt Bracken, Concerned American from Western Rifle Shooters Assoc., and SELCO among others. All of those names should be familiar to readers of this website, as I’ve posted or linked to all of them previously. Their contributions are mostly in the form of chapters dealing with their specialties, like communications for NC Scout and intelligence by Sam Culper. At least some of those sections may have been previously published by those contributors. The two volumes are letter-sized paper, perfect bound, for a total of 950 pages.

See also Civil Defense Manual Store Food Now!

…The Food Weapon

No folks… not that kind of weapon. Food… or the lack thereof. Food is a weapon that can destroy people, movements, groups, nations… and those with enough power to control food and use it as a weapon… don’t have to lift a finger, fire one bullet or even engage their enemy.

All they have to do is sit back and wait for your emaciated and starved carcass to start rotting. Then what will come true is what Charles Heston said at an NRA Convention… “You can have my rifle… but you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands!” That’s what those who use food as a weapon will do… wait until you’re dead and cold. And as an added bonus… they have that fine firearm you were going to defend your lifestyle with…

Update (2022): You can also read a review of the Civil Defense Manual by Joe Dolio, author of the Tactical Wisdom book series.

It’s been said that the measure of a man’s intelligence is often how much he agrees with you. I felt that way as I read Volume 1 of Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual. I’ll put link down below. Since he agrees almost completely with me, the man is clearly a GENIUS.

You’d think as an author writing books about preparedness and community defense, I’d be some sort of all-knowing expert, but the truth is, I realize that I’m not. I frequently seek other sources like Clay Martin’s outstanding books, Max Velocity’s material, and even some fiction with great tips in them, like Mark Sibley’s Mongol Moon (links to all these on the Recommendations page). The reason I do this comes from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook:

Where there is no guidance the people fall,
But in abundance of counselors there is victory.

Proverbs 11:14

The Civil Defense Manual is a hefty 2-volume set, and while it’s written by Jack Lawson, several experts contributed to the work, including some of my friends and advisors. People like Matt Bracken (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com), Mike Shelby of ForwardObserver.com, and NC Scout for radio…

AmPart: A Practical Approach to a Neighborhood Defense Plan

Noell Bishop of Bishop 30 Solutions has written a brief introduction at American Partisan on A Practical Approach to a Neighborhood Defense Plan.  If you find that you are interested in more detail on this topic, you can try to get your hands on a copy of A Failure of Civility  by Mike Garand and Jack Lawson which goes into detail on organizing neighborhood protection teams. It is hard to find these days, but AMP-3 still had some copies last I checked. (Update 12/2020: Jack Lawson has published a new book set Civil Defense Manual which you can from his site.)

Before we dive into the subject of Neighborhood Defense, I thought I would share with you some of my experiences that lend to my thoughts on the matter. Although I have actually studied the subject I have had some events that have been very beneficial to me on the subject.

In 2005, I was a DEA agent assigned to the Houston Field Division in Houston, Texas. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that year. Myself and two other agents along with members of our air wing based out of Houston responded just after the hurricane had passed. What I saw and what I was told to do was somewhat over whelming to say the least. As a reservist, I had already participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and, to be honest, what I saw in New Orleans was worse because it was in the United States. Growing up, I had always heard it said that “no matter what, we Americans will stick together.” Well, I’m here to tell you that could not be farthest from the truth there in New Orleans. I’m not going to tell a bunch of war stories but let’s just say I used more of my Army Special Forces training than law enforcement training. When developing a Neighborhood Defense plan, I kind of equate it to a guerrilla base when things get really bad out there. So for that, I draw from my days in training at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School attending the Special Forces Officer Qualification Course and the Unconditional Warfare phase, Guerrilla Base Operations, and my time at Robin Sage and other sources.

Let’s start this by identifying what the possible threats are that would lend us to need a Neighborhood Defense plan…

Click here to read the entire article at American Partisan.

In regards to Bishop’s statements above about the conditions in New Orleans post-Katrina, I recently heard another speaker, also former military with several years of duty under fire and also deployed to New Orleans/Katrina, make very similar comments about the horrible conditions there.